The Bank of England Letter
by Enchantaskip
Summary: An April Fool's Joke that misfires threatens the whole Empire.


I had very little contact with Holmes in the early months of 1906, and had concluded that his practice had fallen on tranquil times; a boon indeed for the public in that it meant fewer crime, but a curse to one whose mind ran wild without some intricate task to challenge it.

As ever was to be the case, the halcyon interval was not to be long-lived.

Dawn had scarcely broken on the morning of the first of April when a thunderous knocking on my front door shattered my slumbers. Two tall young men, to an old army doctor like myself obviously military officers in mufti, informed me curtly that they had been dispatched by Mr. Mycroft Holmes to fetch me to his brother's bedside with my medical bag and that not a moment was to be lost.

I wasted little time in dressing and hurried with them to Baker St. An anxious Mycroft, uneasy as ever outside his own apartments or his club, was pacing in the living room in a fever of anxiety.

"Watson! At last you are here. I had wanted to summon a more comp.. a different surgeon but he would suffer only yourself to treat him. He is at death's door and never was there a time when England needed his sharp wits more."

I burst into his bedroom, where he lay, pale and unmoving on the bed.

"Holmes, whatever can have come over you? " I demanded, taking my stethoscope from my pocket. It was my fervent wish that he had not been abusing his constitution with narcotics, as was his unfortunate habit when deprived of stimulus for his sharp intellect.

With a feeble hand he beckoned me over and gestured for me to bend over him. He whispered two words in my ear and I stood up and gestured to Mycroft, who had followed me and was standing, agitated with worry, close behind me.

He could see from my face that my anxiety had diminished and his face took on a quizzical cast.

"I know the cause of the problem. Holmes carried out a delicate assignment for Miss Langtry last week."

Awareness dawned on the great forehead of the distinguished public servant.

"Miss Lily Langtry, the famous actress? So. I take it she repaid him in the usual way?"

I nodded.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"As I recall the King had to be taken to Balmoral by a special train after his first encounter with that lady, and was unable to feed himself for a month. Sherlock can have lost none of his fortitude if he is still able to speak after only a week of recuperation."

He paused. "We need his assistance immediately, however debilitated he may be. Do your best to get him in a condition to travel."

It was with the aid of copious amounts of brandy, smelling salts, and indeed his old nemesis, cocaine, that we soon had him dressed and upright and wedged between the two officers in a closed Brougham, his stout walking stick clutched between his knees.

"What is the nature of the crisis, Mycroft?" he asked, his voice weak, "It must be of the most severe nature to draw you from your usual haunts."

"It is indeed, Sherlock, it concerns a letter that may threaten the stability of the Empire. If we are lucky we may intercept it at the post office. If not, we will need all your abilities to find it before it reaches the wrong hands."

We found the Postmaster General standing with Inspector Lestrade on the gallery overlooking the great Sorting Room where hundreds of clerks redirected millions of pieces of post each day.

The postmaster greeted us and Lestrade nodded unhappily at Holmes.

"We have found nothing so far. If it does not appear in the next few hundred bags we shall have to conclude it has gone through. We have other agents waiting at the Bank and its local post office so we should be safe enough." He sounded doubtful.

"Safe enough, indeed, so long as it is not intercepted in between by a foreign agent, " said Mycroft, bitterly, "Look at them. That parcel the lout has just dashed to the floor is probably a delicate optical instrument from Carl Zeiss in Jena. That wax-sealed envelope that giggling ninny in the brown costume has likely flung into the basket for an unnecessary six month round trip to St. Helena in the South Atlantic is probably a bank order representing the one possible respite from poverty of a widow with five children in St. Helens in the Isle of Wight."

I wondered at Mycroft's obvious dislike of that most valuable of British institutions. Holmes was later to enlighten me with the knowledge that Mycroft's dislike was a consequence of having had a valuable collection of photographic "artistic" prints in the post from Paris confiscated by the censor some months before.

A tall youth of perhaps sixteen in tweeds hurried in. "Mr Foster, we are opening the last five bags now, if you would join us."

"Thank you Collins."

The Postmaster nodded to us and prepared to follow the boy.

Holmes smiled at the youth, "From around Clonakilty in Cork, I gather?"

"Indeed Sir, do you know the townland?"  
Holmes shook his head, " I have never visited your fair country, but I have written a small volume in which I classified the two hundred and seventeen different Irish accents."

His face darkened for a moment.

The book had been a commercial failure, selling but few copies as a result of a damning review in "The Times" by Henry Higgins, Professor of Phonetics at London University. Holmes has never been fortunate in his relations with the academic community.

We hurried down to a small side chamber where Collins was already shaking one of the twenty bags onto the table, and we watched as the postmaster and the boy carefully went through the piles of letters.

"Is this it, Sir?"

The boy was holding up a large envelope. Mycroft was stepping forward to lay claim to it when the door darkened and two large men burst in, one bearded and clutching a pistol, the second clean shaven and drawing a short-barrelled shotgun from under an astrakhan coat.

Without a second's thought the young hero flung himself at the bearded one, trapping his arms by his side, the letter flying to one side.

I emptied my revolver into the chest of the one with the shotgun as he aimed it at the boy and he fell groaning to the ground. Holmes smashed his stick over the head of the bearded one, who relinquished his grip and fled through the open door, pursued by the officers.

"Plucky work there, young Collins."  
"Thank you Sir."

"There will be a place for you in the police force anytime you wish, young man." said Lestrade.

The Postmaster General shook his head, "I think he will be remaining here in the postal service, where he has a fine career before him. Young Michael has a clever head on his shoulders and may yet be our chief accountant."

There was a groan from the corner where my victim lay dying.

We gathered around him. "The game is up with you now, my man," said Holmes, "But a I can guarantee a purse of gold for your family if you tell us where the letter is destined to go."

The man raised his bloody head, "The Clipper Inn, St Ives, Cornwall, at 9.30 tonight. AAAaaaaaargh"

Our ears were still ringing, "What was that my man, I am half deaf from the gunfire?" Holmes asked, querulously, a hand to his ear.

The man raised his bloody head once more, "I said, The Clipper Inn, St Ives, Cornwall, at 9.30 tonight. AAAaaaaaargh"

At that he went rigid and his head fell sideways in death.

Homes picked up the letter, tore it open and shook his head. "It is a mere piece of official mail, and not our quarry. See that the inn is well watched for foreign agents, Mycroft"

The two officers presently returned, panting and disappointed. A confederate had been waiting for the thief with a motor car and they had sped off at twelve miles per hour.

I began to reload my Webley with shaking hands.

"By Jove Holmes, I had heard about post offices but this was far beyond what I expected."

Holmes frowned at my naiveté, "These were no ordinary homicidal postal employees Watson! Surely you could see that our deceased friend there in the astrakhan coat and fur topped boots was a Cossack, and that, from his upright stance and iron hard head, his now fragmented accomplice was an Ulhan?"

His eyes narrowed, " The prospect of the Kaiser and the Tsar co-operating to attain the destruction of the Empire is a sobering one. Come we now must get a full account of this mysterious letter and make our way to St. Ives."

We examined every piece of mail there three times but the letter remained missing, so we repaired to the hotel, Holmes, Mycroft, myself, Lestrade from the Yard, and a very tall, rather ostentatiously dressed young Cambridge student who Mycroft introduced merely as Keynes. There he explained the curious circumstances that had brought us together.

"We have a special dinner once every month at the Cadogan Hotel where the Chancellor gathers together a mixture of treasury officials and intelligent outsiders to discuss the more modern ideas in government financing. After last night's dinner myself, the Chancellor, his secretary and Keynes here sat up late with a decanter. The Secretary left sometime later, somewhat the worse for wear, and unfortunately dropping his briefcase on the way and losing a number of blank sheets of Treasury stationery.

The discussion had been on the Gold Standard, and Keynes had produced a radical theory that it should be done away with and our currency backed merely by securities in foreign governments. We had discussed this is a rather frivolous spirit, and finally, as it grew later, we decided to draft a letter to the Governor of the Bank of England instructing him to sell of our gold reserves at once and to replace them with the Bonds of Russia, France, Germany and the United States. Of course it was to be in the nature of an April Fool's prank and never to be sent, but we drafted the letter carefully and sent the waiter, a young Austrian, for another decanter.

At length, when we were ready to leave, Keynes here looked for the letter and it had disappeared. As had the young waiter."

Holmes whistled in astonishment, "It seems to me to be far past the acceptable bounds for frivolity to risk the economies of the whole Empire for a pleasantry! Who knows what the consequences would be were the wrong chancelleries to lay hands on that letter? Were it to be leaked to the capital markets of the world there would be an immediate loss of confidence in the Empire. Our trade would decay, our government would be a pariah, and the Pound would no longer be the principal currency of the world, being replaced by the franc, the Mark, or perhaps even the Dollar."

Everyone smiled for a moment at that unlikely eventuality, but there was no time for humour.

I know nothing of government finance, but I tentatively put the question,

"Could not the Bank deny any intention of departing from the gold standard, and call in some reputable outsider to make an audit of the gold and certify that the Pound Sterling is completely backed by our gold reserves."

There was a silence. Mycroft looked around for eavesdroppers before he spoke.

"There's the rub Watson. There is a minor shortfall of some fifty tons. You cannot build eight dreadnoughts out of the proceeds of taxation at a mere 6d in the pound. We have had to deposit the gold in Switzerland to guarantee our borrowings. If the masses were to find that out there would be rioting and runs on every bank." 

"Did you take steps to locate the waiter?"

Mycroft nodded, "We did. Keynes had his personal details."

Holmes wrinkled his brow, and Mycroft explained, as Keynes blushed, "It appears that Keynes was engaged in a mild flirtation with the waiter during the evening. He is waiting outside." 

I was unable to contain myself, "I cannot believe that you admit to an irregular and criminal liaison of that nature. It is infamous, sir. Are you not aware that it was as similar liaison which encompassed the destruction of the poet Wilde not too many years ago?"

Keynes reddened the more, and I noticed Mycroft and Lestrade eying me with some curiosity.

There was a protracted silence, then Holmes coughed, "Perhaps Watson, we can take the view, as some authorities do, that such leanings are inherited or perhaps a form of curable mental malady that some day may respond to science, and address our endeavours to the problem at hand."

The brother of the great detective and the Scotland Yard officer continued to look at me curiously for a moment, then at Holmes, something I have never understood.

At length Holmes asked for a detailed account of the meal, and Mycroft and Keynes gave an extremely detailed account of a harmless if bibulous occasion. At the end Holmes sent for the one witness who entered with diffidence. The waiter seemed an ordinary young fellow with none of the marks of effeminacy one would have expected.

"Pray sit and let us have your account of the events concerning the letter."

There had been another dinner in the adjoining room, a collection of foreigners for some university conference. Because the evening had been a busy one he had been assisting at both. When at last he was serving coffee he noticed one of the foreigners return from a visit to the toilet bearing a sheet of paper.

He read it and discussed it with the lady beside him, while a tall bearded man opposite seemed to be very interested in the conversation. He produced an envelope, a pocket inkwell and a pen, addressed the envelope and put in the letter. The lady beside him asked for it, took out the letter, read it and returned it. Here he paused.

"Was there something else?"

The young man nodded, but seemed confused.

"I got the fleeting impression that the lady had taken something from the envelope, but I she had, it must have been so small as to escape notice."

After that the man placed a stamp on the envelope, and left the room, presumably to post the letter.

"His name was Professor Santos from Lisbon."

Mycroft put down his cup, " A man of the highest reputation, but a very scrupulous one who would see it as his duty to make sure any lost missive was sent to its rightful home as soon as possible. We have not identified the lady yet, but I suspect the eager onlooker was an academic from Wittenberg we know very well who would see any damage done to the British Empire as his patriotic duty. Once Keynes had explained the situation I had all the post boxes within a mile of the hotel searched and had agents ready to follow every man who left the hotel this morning. But our searches have so far failed."

"Perhaps someone was at the sorting office before us. Let us telephone the postmaster."

There was a glassed in box in the hall containing the instrument. Holmes returned from his call grave –faced.

"Some time before we arrived two foreign women arrived at the sorting office. One was perhaps forty, one much younger and I gather of some attraction. The elder lady claimed to be the wife of the Postmaster General for Belgium, on a brief visit to London, and asked to see the great sorting office while she was here. She was given a short tour."

Mycroft groaned, "Was she left alone with the mail at any time?" 

Sherlock was walking back and forth, back and forth, in a fever of confusion, "You have reached the nub of the matter. She was, because after her young friend swooned she sent their guide for a glass of water. But he was only away for a few minutes. She could not have searched a fraction of the mailbags piled in the room in that time."

"What shall we do now, Sherlock? The Chancellor is expecting a report before noon."

"These are dark waters. The only solution is perfect solitude for me and a half pound of shag for the next two hours."

He took to a private room to turn his great mind to the problem while we remaining three paced the corridor outside in fretful anxiety. As if in sympathy with our growing despair, the weather broke and an angry wind hurled icy at the windows.

Time passed slowly, then a maid appeared at the door of his room, knocked, entered and left. Holmes tucked his head around the door, "Pray join me, gentlemen. Watson, if you could open the window, the atmosphere is a little thick for a room to which one has invited a lady for tea."

By the time the lady, an attractive French woman of about forty, arrived, the stench of the coarse pipe tobacco had largely dissipated, and she had barely entered when the maid returned pushing a trolley laden with tea, sandwiches and cakes. The lady was in a green costume as elegant as only a French costume can be, and carried an elegant, though somewhat large bag.

"Madame ..Dampier, this is my brother Mycroft, and my friends Lestrade and Watson. Please be seated and let me pour you some excellent Indian tea."

She curtsied and took her seat.

"Your young companion could not join you?"

She was a little unwell, we were told, but recovering well.

Holmes made all the running in the conversation. The lady had good English, and Holmes's excellent French made up for any problems in understanding.

After many pleasantries, the lady smiled at Holmes, "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, M. Holmes, and of course your brother, the famous fonctionnaire, Dr. Watson and the other gentlemen, but must admit I do not understand the purpose of this invitation, pleasant and all as it may be."

"I have long been intrigued by your work, Madame, I thought that as distinguished a scientist as yourself would prefer the opportunity to return the missing object over tea rather than in a cell in Scotland Yard."

"I do admit to using a nom de guerre. I had feared that the press would be pestering me here in England, where a lady scientist is still such a novelty. This letter," and she reached into her bag, " I had planned to return to some member of your Surete, or whatever the organisation may be called. I sent them a letter this morning by messenger but there has been no reply so far."

We looked at Mycroft, who hurriedly scribbled a note and sent it off with Lestrade. No doubt some less than diligent clerk would shortly feel his wrath.

Mycroft took the envelope from her hand, opened it, and gave a long sigh of relief. The lady smiled,

"When I saw the letter I knew that it was either a joke or an attempt at mischief. Santos would not countenance anything but it's immediate delivery, and would not be convinced to seek out the writer. I could see that there were others there who saw other opportunities. "

Holmes raised a finger to his lips.

"Your personal charms would allow you entry to the post office without difficulty, so you decided to mark the envelope in a manner which would permit only yourself to recover it from the other millions of envelopes it the post office, using a method which no other women, and fewer than a handful of men, on the globe could encompass."

She clapped her hands in delight, "I am impressed, Mr. Holmes, not just by your knowledge of my researches into radium, but by your sagacity in assembling the facts into a coherent narrative. Yes, Mr. Holmes, in my bag I had a phial of radium samples and a radiation detector, both of which I had used for a demonstration at the conference in the university."

She took out a small leaded container and shook some tiny dark flecks onto a sheet of paper. Next she produced a wooden box perhaps six inches square with a meshed hole at one end and an electrical switch. She placed it by the flecks, operated the switch and the box began to click loudly.

"A few grammes of radium in the envelope, a few minutes alone with the mailbags, and, zut, I had recovered the dangerous letter. If you would try not to lose it again, messieurs, I would beg to take my leave." 

Mycroft took the envelope to the fireplace, extracted the letter and employed one of his brother's wax vestas to ignite it. When it was nothing but ash he crumpled the remnants into flakes and threw them into the empty grate.

"We are greatly in Madame Dampier's debt." He commented.

"Indeed we are, Mycroft, and I believe a substantial gift of jewellery or perhaps a title at the next award of honours by His Majesty would fir the bill. Although perhaps a title would be unnecessary. She may choose to travel under a nom de guerre, but her present title, her real name of Dr. Marie Curie, endows her with far more glory than the title of Dame or even Countess ever would."

Mycroft whistled at the famous name, then held out a sooty hand to his brother. "Well Sherlock, you have saved our bacon again, although I believe that good lady would have done so herself in time anyway. It is time for me to return to my office, and for Mr. Keynes to return to his academic environs where I hope he will remain, without dabbling any more in the dangerous practical work of government. I bid you farewell."

In the long years that followed I did not even attempt to importune Holmes for permission to publish this adventure, knowing how important secrecy is in financial matters. However, last year, in 1922, I visited him in his cottage and we spent many evenings talking over old times over a glass of his dreadful elderflower wine.

Eventually I broached the subject of how enough time might have passed to make the subject a suitable one for the public. He undid the ribbon around the manuscript with hands that are still steady, and read it through, chuckling as he did so.

At length he replaced the ribbon and bound it tightly.

"I am sorry to have to tell you Watson, knowing that you will be disappointed, that the story will not be fit to be made public for many the year yet. In fact, I would ask that it be placed in your bank until the centenary of the adventure in 2006."

He must have seen the disappointment in my face, for he reached for his cane, got slowly to his feet and walked to the bureau where more a than a week's worth of national and foreign newspapers were strewn.

It took him some time to find the one he wanted, and he came over to me chuckling and held one out.

"It is ironic the games fate plays with us. Take a look at that picture on the front page."

It featured the team of signatories from Ireland who had signed the treaty bringing their Free State into being.

"Do you recognise the tall man in the middle? Think of him when you ponder the vagaries of destiny. When you shot the Russian all those years ago, and saved the life of an Irish postal clerk, you were not to know that your were striking a more damaging blow against the Empire than any thousand foreign agents could achieve. We will never know, and even our grandchildren may not, whether this was for better or worse."


End file.
